


Hearth

by Wicked_Seraph



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Gen Work, Light Angst, Past Sexual Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-13 14:47:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17489951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wicked_Seraph/pseuds/Wicked_Seraph
Summary: Jennifer wonders how long it’d been since he allowed himself to be trusted and chastised, since anyone had dared to tell him that petulance and venom didn’t become him.





	Hearth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GracefulNanami](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GracefulNanami/gifts).



> This was written to fulfill a request by [GracefulNanami](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GracefulNanami/profile) regarding the relationship between Aslan, Griffin, and Jennifer. The idea was an incredibly interesting one, and I hope I've done it justice!

There was enough dust on the shelves for them to scatter and catch the light if she so much as breathed near them; the dishes lay abandoned in the sink, crusted with soggy batter and cocktail sauce.

Instead of a sponge and dish towel, however, Jennifer found her hands full of sweeter things — one grasping a tube of sunscreen, the other nestling a small hand sticky with melted ice cream. Her feet were bare and buried beneath sand the color of bleached wood, apron swapped for a bathing suit that lay nearly forgotten in the back of her closet.

“It’s okay, Aslan,” she says with a smile. “He won’t be mad, I promise.”

Aslan’s eyes are wide and doubtful, his hand trembling inside of hers. Griffin takes the other, tickling the inside of Aslan’s palm softly until a grin tugs at the edge of his mouth and his other hand stills.

“Don’t you wanna show your big brother how to make a sandcastle? I bet I could make one even bigger than you!”

“Nuh uh!”

Aslan takes the bait, old enough to know when his brother is goading him, but eager to cling to anything that distracts him from his own thoughts.

Jennifer tries to remember the things she thought about when she was his age: how much larger the world looked, how terrifying it was to lack words or knowledge to explain the murky blackness. She remembers the shroud of nausea that enveloped her when uncles hugged her just a little too long, when her father’s friends remarked on future beauty yet to blossom, yet to even be considered. To think that Aslan might understand at such a young age filled her with equal parts rage and pity.

“Aslan, you remember how to build sandcastles, right? Why don’t you show him how much better you’ve gotten?”

Jennifer gives Aslan a gentle nudge, and this is seemingly all the encouragement he needs before he removes his hand from hers — gently, she notes, as though he were afraid to hurt her — and gallops to Griffin’s side, his laughter sweet in a way that makes her heart clench and her eyes burn.

She can count on one hand the number of times she’s heard Aslan laugh since the police had closed their notebooks and chipped away at his dignity, his eyes empty and shoulders heavy with unfathomable shame. She can count on one hand the number of times she or Griffin had dared to smile since Jim had started drinking again, since the gash in his hand from a shot glass hurled in grief had healed.

The warmth of the hearth she’d cultivated had cooled, their home more akin to a morgue than a sanctuary. The Aslan that would giggle and climb in his father’s lap to read bedtime stories lay buried beneath the Coach’s house; it wasn’t until the trees had shed their branches that he had allowed Griffin or Jennifer to touch him at all, longer still until he could make eye contact without trembling hands or tears in his eyes.

Buried at the bottom of an ocean lay the Jim that would embrace her and press kisses to the back of her neck when his sons weren’t watching, that would ruffle his sons’ hair and carry them on his broad shoulders. Intimacy between them lay in the apologetic way his eyes would meet hers before turning in the opposite direction in their shared bed, in the way his eyes would darken with mingled desire and grief when she disrobed. She knew that in her, he saw all the things Aslan would be denied, would struggle to ever accept. She knew that in Aslan, Jim saw an open wound, one that no amount of rationalizing or time would convince him hadn’t been caused by his own hands. Aslan was a walking reminder that he’d failed; the wide, green eyes that gazed up at him, beseeching, would only ever serve as beacons of his own ineptitude.

“It’s okay,” she would whisper, pretending not to notice the smell of whiskey on his breath, the way it clung to their bed sheets. “I understand.”

She understood why Aslan clung to Griffin so tightly, why he indulged in every bit of petulance and disobedience that he could find. She understood why Jim refused to discipline him, why Aslan wished he would.

But today Aslan was eager, shrieking in delight when Griffin would hoist him on his shoulders and toss him into the ocean. Aslan ran along the water’s edge, edging just close enough to Griffin’s sandcastle to threaten destruction, leaving a trail of footprints washed away as soon as they were noticed. Aslan refused to touch the vegetables she’d brought for their picnic lunch, nibbling defiantly at chips and the cake she’d set set aside for dessert.

“Aslan!”

Aslan looked up, eyes deceptively innocent.

“Make sure you eat your vegetables. You’re going to spoil your appetite.”

“Don’t wanna.”

“Well, but you’re a good boy. And good boys eat their vegetables so they can grow up big and strong. So I know that you will,” she says, smiling as she hands him a plate with steamed broccoli. Aslan scowls, deliberating in a way that she knows has nothing to do with the vegetables.

“She’s right, you know,” Griffin says, popping a floret in his mouth. “She brought the cake because she knew you’d eat your vegetables.”

Aslan levels Jennifer with an expression that is unnervingly serious, burdened with a multitude of questions left unasked.

“I’m only doing this because I want the cake,” he mutters, defiant even as he takes the broccoli, his displeasure evident.

But something in his eyes seems brighter, even while his lips quiver in comical disgust, and Jennifer wonders how long it’d been since he allowed himself to be trusted and chastised, since anyone had dared to tell him that petulance and venom didn’t become him.

Something within in her warms, the faintest ember amidst a pile of ashes and kindling. For the first time in almost a year, she allows herself to hope.


End file.
